Episode 96: Momentum Towards Profitability with Jason and Jodi Womack

Dude, we're in like Flynn, brother. Give me the heat. We are rolling over the seas and far away. Here we go.

Holy cow, he's singing. And you're listening to the Profit first podcast.

Episode 96.

Go.

Can you believe it? He's a singer.

We made it 96. Well, really hundred. Do we have any plans for the hundredth episode?

We do. Oh, my God, the celebrations. Do you know they're closing the city streets?

Cryst. Welcome to the show, everyone. My name is Chris Curran. I'm the founder of Fractal Recording.

And I'm Mike Michalowicz, the author of Profit first and my brand new book, Surge and the Pumpkin Plan and the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. If you want to collect the entire.

Library, there it is.

Of books. And you, Serge. And you are listening to the Profit first podcast. This is the show where we explore all elements of profitability. The Alpha, the Omega, the Theta, the Kappa, the Lambda Mu Nu of Prof. And I'll tell you, if you take one tip away from every one of these 96 episodes, you'd be richer than Berkshire Hathaway. I mean, do this stuff. And today's episode is going to be no different. We're going to talk about momentum. How about when you are the one who's stuck? What about if you are the roadblock to your own profitability? Well, we have two great guests, Jason Womack and Jody Womack, ironically, Not related, will be on the show. Jason and Jody are like, why did our agent hook us up?

Yeah, they're like, what the hell is this show?

I know, I heard like one of the lines drop. Actually, Chris, where can people learn about us?

You know, we're available everywhere you can hear a podcast. Itunes, Stitcher, Tunein Radio, Google Play, anywhere you hear a podcast, any cool little app you have. Overcast, Podcast addict. You can hear our show and of course our website, profit first, podcast.com, all of our episodes. You know, it's. I'm telling you, you want access to an amazingly successful business author, Just comment on one of these posts and the Prince of Prophet himself will respond. If you have a question or a comment about your business, comment. And. And he'll get back to you. Him or Obi Wan Kenobi. So it's either a Jedi or a prince is going to return your common right?

I'd rather have a Jedi. A prince is arrogant. It's someone else's money. But. But a Jedi.

Wow.

By the way, Christine is not here today, and I have Barry the maintenance guy here with me as well. Barry.

Barry how do you.

Thanks for joining in, Barry. How's the show so far without Christina?

It's a miss.

Yeah, it's a miss. So, yeah, that's it.

Well, thank you for joining us. I appreciate it. I don't know what we could do to fix the show. Barry, do you have any suggestions of maybe animals we could use to. There's no activity, no giggle, no nothing. No giggle. That's. I was trying to feed you the animal line.

Oh, oh, you mean what are we gonna do?

What animals do? We need to make the show go, but we can. You're gonna need a couple of horses, a couple of mules. Yes, of course.

So we've been up to Chris, you know, it's. Spring is springing here in Colorado Springs. And it's funny. May 1st. Well, April 29th, April 30th and May 1st it snowed. And then May 2nd, there's still snow on the ground. It's sunny, but it's all melting and it's. They told us not to plant anything outside, like flowers or plants until Mother's Day, which is usually what, the second week of May or something.

Dude, Being a amateur gardener myself, that's the Mother's Day rule, they call it. Oh, don't plant those mothers until. That's what us gardeners do as a joke. It's a total mess. So, dude, I was out in Wyoming before recording. This was only two days ago. Snow coming down. I left New York, 65 degrees. I land in Casper, Wyoming, snow coming down, freezing out. And I was there for three days, lecturing at University of Wyoming. Some other events out there, I fly back out of snow. Oh, and I'll tell you one thing that impresses me about the Wyomings is that snow doesn't stop planes from flying out that way. You're like, whatever.

Was it a prop plane?

Yeah. Here's my update of the day. My wife just texted me and she put swears in here, so I skipped the swears. I just got hit in the head by a little two year old where I broke my nose. He broke her nose once in the past? No, my son headbutted her by accident at about the same age. I'm okay and look fine, but my head is throbbing down to my teeth.

Oh yeah, she needs.

And coincidentally, I'm listening to Alison Cooper's Poison in the background. This is all coming together. So my wife works at a daycare center. She was a stay at home mom for 15 years. And now that our youngest is 14 in high school, you know, she's like, I'm. Get back to work. And this is the job she chose. And it's brutal, dude. It's like. It's, man, it's. It's. You know, she calls it. She calls it the insane asylum. Oh, and that's what. It's worse. It's freaking worse.

Therapy. She needs a cranial massage when she gets home. Give it to her, Mike.

Oh, my God. So the folks who make. The folks who make this show possible, please, before we bring on our guests who are related, by the way, that was. That was a funny. I made. That was a funny fundera. Yes, it's stepped up again. 96 episodes of Stepping Up T Sheets. Yes, 96 episodes. Fundbox A little. They came on a little more recently, but I'll give them 94 episodes or something. Nextiva. They've actually been here for years before the podcast. And amazingly, when we started this, said we'll stay on board as a sponsor and then receipt bank who I use daily. So we'll share a little more details on who those corporate partners are. But we want to thank them for making this insanity a reality.

We really do. Thank you guys.

Jason and Jody Womack. They're married, by the way. Met in front in the front row of history class in college. I wonder what college that was. Jody asked to borrow Jason's notes. He said, no, I don't roll that way. That was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. Today, they're the authors of newly released books or a book. It just came out on May 2nd. It's called Get Momentum. My show notes say it's called ET Momentum. We dropped a G, so I thought it was like a Latin book at first.

Et Momento or ET Extraterrestrial.

Extraterrestrial. Get Momentum. How to start when you're stuck? I'll tell you if there's one question I get the most frequently from entrepreneurs is I am stuck. I am stuck. How do I get out? So to answer that question right here, right now, Jason, Jody Womack, welcome to the show.

Hey, guys.

Hey, everybody. This is. This is already a good time.

I'm surprised. You're still on.

Right.

What college were you at when you.

Got University of California at the Santa Barbara campus. Someone had to go ucsb.

Is that what it's called?

Go gauchos.

Go Gauchos. What kind of mouse. What is that? Like, what's a gaucho?

Marx?

It's a vaquero.

It's a vaquero.

Lay down.

Crazy cowboy. That's what we were.

Okay, so you Guys were the crazy cowboys. Was it love at first sight?

No, I just wanted his notes.

And, you know, she kept not showing up to class.

So, Jody, was this just a shortcut? Like, you were the class skipper?

You know, it was early. It was 10 in the morning, which really early back in college.

Whoa. How dare they have a class that early?

So maybe she was hanging out with our earlier guest, Craig, who had that hydroponic system. So, Jason, were you the studious, studious guy?

You know, I knew how to play the game once. I know what the rules are, and that's pretty much for anything, but give me the rules and I'll win as soon as I know what game everybody's playing. So in college, it was, you know, the closer you sat, the more it looked like you were paying attention. You drop by the office hours for the Prof. Every now and then, I could get to the next thing. For me, it was always like, you know, it's what's the stone that's going to get me across the river? Because over there it looks like there's a party and I'd love to go play.

Wow.

So let's talk about momentum. I was reading recently a book, I think it's one of Charles Duhigg's books, his most recent productivity book. And he shared an analogy and said that when we're stuck in traffic, many of us, even though logically we know it's going to be a longer route, taking the country roads, will get off just to feel momentum. And I think a lot of people listening to this show, they have a very clear goal of where they want to head. They are trying to follow the directest route, the highway, but they're stuck. What do you do when you're stuck?

I love that. I mean, my example of that is actually landing at JFK and getting to the city. There's some cabbies that, you know, they'll take a gazillion side streets just to feel like we're moving. I'm not entirely sure we get anywhere faster, if anything. You know, I'm sitting next to my wife and she's feeling queasy because of the start and stop in traffic. And I think the gift that we can give ourselves, it's almost a paradox. But the most momentum we can feel at times is actually by slowing down. And we talk about some of those things later on in the book. Look, we define momentum as making progress toward a stated outcome. So whether that's at home, that's at work, maybe that's with your community. What Is it that you'd like to be experiencing more of? And what is the feeling? Because in our experience is belief feeling, action. I believe something's possible. I feel like I'm making progress toward that. Then there's some activity. There's something that I do that expresses that.

But what about when things are kind of the wheels start falling off the wagon, not in momentum, but the lack of it. I'm just thinking here at our own office, we have slowdown in one aspect of our business and things start getting intense, emotions start running high, and then there's a panic to do things. But now I'm hearing from you, that's the exact time to slow down.

I mean, look, you know, I'm gonna have Jody come in because she's give us that other perspective. But guys like us, if the wheels aren't rolling off every now and then, will actually get bored, right? If there, if there isn't something that says, oh, God, am I ready for this? Next thing you know, I can't believe they just called. I got an email from a Fortune 10 company this morning. It's like, oh, wait a minute, hang on a second. You know, am I ready to bring my book to them now? What we do with that. And you know, Jodi, I'm thinking about, you know, you walking on stage sometimes like you're nervous, but it's. How do you channel that nervousness?

I love it. And so many of us get trapped in the busyness, where the busyness makes us feel like we're doing something and moving things forward, but they're not. It just keeps us in this trap of always doing the day to day things. So Jason and I talk about in the book, this rule that's called the 3030 rule. And that's what we feel. One of the most easy to implement, ready to go things you can do. And it's working for 30 minutes a little bit every day on something that's 30 days or more away. And it sounds crazy because usually we're working on things that are due right now, today or tomorrow, and it feels like everything's on fire. But by investing that little bit of time now in something that's far off, we're handling these crises that are coming towards us. Does that make sense?

Oh, it does. It sounds like you're saying, prioritize the important over the urgent. But that's easy said. You know, there's a hundred things that need to be done at the office today for me to carve out that 30 minutes to do the important. It Sounds great, but I gotta get these things done.

Here's where I started it. I mean, you know, this is a wild experiment I ran back in 14. And what happened was we were getting surprised by family's birthdays coming up on the calendar, which shouldn't surprise me, right? It's like, I shouldn't look at the count, go, oh, gosh. You know, I have to get a card in the mail for my dad. So I started this actually on the personal side of my life at the end of days. So it might be 8:30 or 9:30 at night. I'd look at the calendar for a month out and go, all right, Jason, what's gonna kick your. What's gonna. If you don't start working on it right now? Did this all of 14. In 15, I started applying it to my business where Jody and I would look at the calendar. We'd go out 30, 40, 50 days, and I mean our calendar spoken for sometimes six to eight months at a time. And I'd start making phone calls for 35, 45, 50 days from today. And I'd book another day of work, I'd book another book chat, I'd book another client meeting. It was because I was ahead of it just a bit. And I completely agree with you. I would even say there's a third one. There's the important, there's the urgent, and then there's the not on my mind yet. That's what I'm trying to get into my head. And so the challenge I'll give to everybody right now, you know, if you want to build profit into your organization. What's profit? Abundance. It's extra. It's more. And the only way I know of to experience that is to start acting as if I have it. You know, people say to me all the time, jason, when I have time, I'll. And I'll just call their bull. I will call them on it. Because if you don't have time now, what on earth makes you think you're gonna have more time later? I know people who are retired right now, guys. People who are retired who are busier now than ever when they were working.

So how do you do this when there's another element, AKA a partner? I mean, Jason and Jody, you experienced this with your book. I mean, this is a major project. You have to look out into the future. You have to consider things that are not on your mind yet. And then you got to do it together and, by the way, share the same bed. Like, how do you do that one?

Welcome to Our life. Jody has a great story of how we wrote the book. Go for it.

Well, and this goes back to. Jason and I are really different. You can tell. Super high energy. He's a morning person. I'm more mellow. I kind of wake up in the later afternoon. Jason wrote the book and I deleted it. So we sort of went out and came back in and went out and came back in. And I don't know if I could do that with anybody that I wasn't married to. So that's how it works for us. That's our dynamic, and we thrive on it. We make each other crazy, and it's a great thing.

You know, this is a great example for anybody who's doing a business venture with a partner, whether that's a romantic partner, a buddy, a good, good friend. Jody and I, letter for letter, color for color, animal for animal, in any personality assessment were opposite. So, you know, the first one we ever did way back when, if all you listening, haven't done this at least this year, go do doesn't matter. Myers Briggs Disc profile, Winslow assessment. There's a whole bunch of them. But the first time we did it, we had this epiphany of we're not trying to drive each other crazy. We're not trying to make each other mad. We literally see the same rock as different colors. We see the same problem as different issues. We see the same opportunity with different lenses. And, you know, I can't tell you how many times, Jody, you and I have had to back up and go, okay, you're seeing what I'm not. And that's the strength. And it's what could be our Achilles heel left to its own devices.

How do you manage that? And let me position that I have a business partner here in my company, obi Ron Kenobi, both high energy guys, both see problems. He just pulled out his lightsaber. We see things from different angles. We can start butting heads. How do you get back on the same age?

I'll give you one tactic we did, is we actually went through our client list and we serve anywhere from medium to large businesses. But inside of those organizations, there's usually one, maybe two people who actually hire us. And this has been going on for 16 years. And what we did is we actually made a list of our clients by who's more like Jason, who's more like Jody. And then that way it wasn't like, oh, I'm giving in or I'm giving over. Jody's not giving over to me. We're creating something that will be more applicable or more adoptable by the people who are like a Jason. And we needed them both. We can't both be the, you know, on stage, in the space spotlight. But neither one of us were built to be in the corner.

Okay, so you're both looking at clients and opportunities and then matching up to your Persona. Is that kind of one of the techniques?

Yeah, people like people like them. Yeah. Go, Jo.

I was gonna say one example we had was we shifted who ran the money for Jason and I personally and professionally. So Jason used to handle all that. He got everything up and running on autopay and all that. And then at one point, he handed me the finances. And my perspective was, I'm doing a good job if I handle it all and he doesn't have to know about any of it. You know, what's going, coming in, going out, where we need to borrow or project into the future. And that was my perception that stressed him out so, so badly, not knowing and being out of the loop, even though he gave it to me to do. And it took us having to sit down and say, why are you so frustrated and why are you angry? And what's going on with all the energy? And we had to sit down and talk and figure out what made each other comfortable in that situation of knowing and how much do you need to know? So we started these Money Monday reports where I give him, like, a really high level summary. What's coming in, what's going out, what's accounts receivable, what's big bills coming, just a snapshot once a week. And that lets him relax, knowing that I'm on it. And he kind of knows where we are, what the numbers are, but he doesn't have to know the details, right? So in every relationship, you've got to figure out where their stress point is and what's the level of stress, where is it coming from? And there's no secret sauce for everybody. You definitely need to sit down and talk it through.

When you feel you have no momentum, when you feel totally overwhelmed, totally stuck, do you have specific strategies just to get the juices flowing again, to just get started up again?

You know, I've got two. One I got from a mentor of mine way back when, probably, gosh, maybe 20 years ago now, a woman named Gwen Gross. She said, this is back in the days of, if you remember manila folders and file cabinets. She said. She said, make a manila folder with your name on it. And anytime you get a little attaboy or A kudo or a pat on the back. You either copy it, print it, or just take that handwritten note and drop it in your folder. She said, there will be days, days like this. There will be days when you need that folder. To this day, I have both physical in my file cabinet and digital. So one way is I can look back on and go, okay. At one point in my life, I did okay. It helped someone along the way. I could probably do it again. That's kind of the one that I would fall back on the fastest. But if I were to take a look at the book that we put together, the first question we just came up with. We came up with five questions to create momentum. But the first one is the one I wouldn't go to sleep tonight without a draft draft answer to. And that one is, what do I want to be known for? What do I want to be known for? And when you answer that question, it acts as a filter, but it also acts as a gas pedal. So if I know that I want to be known for. And by the way you pick your role that you're answering that question toward people listening to this, what do you want to be known for as an entrepreneur? What do you want to be known for as an author? What do you want to be known for as a page? What do you want to be known for as a brother? What do you want to be known for as a community volunteer? And then what winds up happening, guys, is every invite that comes across my email, phone call, or I'm sitting at the coffee shop in town, someone say, hey, Jason, you know, we'd love to have you involved with this. The first thing I do is I filter it against what I want to be known for relative to what they're asking me to participate in. And I tell you, it acts as a open gate or it shuts that wall really fast. And no harm, no foul, right? It's not that I don't like the person who's requesting it of me. It's so out of alignment with a clarified vision or version of here's where I'm putting my limited energy, my limited focus, my limited money, my limited time.

What about a downward spiral? Sometimes I think you can get too much momentum. Meaning? Well, even from my personal experience, after I sold some of my businesses, I became an angel investor, started putting my own money into businesses. It wasn't working. My fat ego couldn't get out of the way. I spent more. I was just blowing money. Is there a way to catch ourselves in having too much Momentum when it's in a downward spiral.

I know one of the things I've done. And Jodi, I'm thinking of a couple of examples with the women's business social for you, But I know one of the things I've done and you know, forgive me, but I'm just going to jump to the second momentum question because you started it. But the second, the second question of momentum is whom can I learn from? You know, so you start down that path. And I know you're in Colorado, so, you know, one phone call, email, or text message over to Brad Feld and who knows what information may have come your way, even if he didn't reply and just said, go read this book, go read that article. So this idea of whom can I learn from? I know for me, anytime that that. And by the way, the spiral goes up and down. Anytime I'm too fast on the spiral, I'm making a phone call to a mentor, I'm hiring a coach, I'm taking a class, because I've got to put myself. I'm spinning into something that I know nothing about. When Jody and I got the book contract, the second thing I did after I signed it and called my mom, the second thing I did is I went online and I found business books written by couples that became best sellers. Now, there's not a lot of them, but every single person that I could find a couple that I could find a how to business book written by a couple that became a best seller. So I'm talking Jack and Suzy Welch, Gay and Katie Hendrix, Diane and John Sculley, Bill and Melinda Gates. I wrote all these people letters. Now here's the deal. Very few of them got back to us. That didn't stop me. I still went back and I reverse engineered their marketing plan. Now look at Bill and Melinda Gates. All they have to do is put something on Amazon. They're going to sell a million copies of it. But there were things that I could still reverse engineer into, okay? They showed up at this conference, they wrote that article, they guest posted on that blog. So those are the things that I know for me are so significant to go figure out. Whom can I learn from as I'm getting outside of what my normal everyday comfort zone is?

And Jody, what are your techniques for snipping that downward spiral and getting back to where we need to be?

I think you nailed it on the head when you named it. My ego gets in the way. Like, what will everybody think if I don't do this? And I realized I can't run my life based on what other people are thinking of me. Jason mentioned I used to run a women's business social here in our community, and I did it once a month for five years, and I really got to be known for it. And, you know, there was a lot of ego. I'll just say it like, I was very proud of that whole role, but inside, like, I didn't want to go to my own events. After a while, I was bored. I was totally bored. And at one point, I just had to say, I don't want to do this anymore and talk to some friends and people, you know, trusted colleagues, where they really pushed on me and said, well, why are you doing them? It's like, well, I do them because I've always done them. And so, like, just listening to yourself and your reasoning and making it okay, you know, to me, redefining it instead of a failure is like, it was a success for five years. I closed it down and then I moved on. And so for me, it's like really getting to the core belief systems. You know, what am I saying about myself as a result of doing this action? I don't know about you, but, like, was it hard to stop investing or was it hard. Hard to change the behavior and how you were known as an angel investor. That's quite a proud title to have.

Yeah, I was a train wreck. I actually lost all my money because I couldn't get past that. I could buy my way out of it. I thought I just needed to get one more transaction, one more acquisition, and this would turn. And then I had to almost declare bankruptcy in 2008. I didn't. In retrospect, with proper guidance, maybe I should have. So that went through two years of depression. That's actually what sparked me to become an author. Ironically, it's those dark periods I found that are the greatest in building character sucks. We have to go through that. But it's also a turning moment. Did you find, as you're doing your research for Momentum, that sometimes people just need to hit the wall to finally make that turn?

You know, we talk a lot in the book the First m. The first Stage, that question, what do I want to be known for? We call that the motivating question. I have yet, and this is just in a couple of years, the Get Momentum Leadership Academy upon which the book is based. It's just over three years old. We've been working with clients around the world. I have yet to ask someone what they want to be known for and have them turn Back to me, a 400 to 600 word mini essay. I have yet to have someone do that and not feel motivated and not tell me that in reading that script, that in lying in bed that night and sharing with their spouse what they want to be known for as parents, what they want to be known for as a boss, as an owner, as a manager, as a community member. Now, here's the deal. The motivation comes from the motive, from within for taking action. So in the book, we give the story and, you know, we've all been to a motivational speech, right? You get some former athlete, you get some mountain climber, you get someone who went through terrible, terrible childhood. And I'm sitting there and look it. I'll be very transparent with you guys. I'm trying to relate. Like, I don't want to climb Mount Everest. I wanna. And there's no part of it that I look at that and go, oh, my gosh, I'm so inspired. Because what motivated them doesn't motivate me. And that's why there was always this half life to. When I did used to as a kid go to motivational speeches, whether they were the pep rallies at high school or the things that I was a high school teacher for a long time. And so we were always trying to inspire and motivate the kids. I look back on that now, I go, oh, my gosh, I needed to go figure out, I needed to dig that well and go into that dark place and go. I mean, look at what we're talking about, really, ultimately is the dash. The cat was born in 1972. He died in whatever. What happened in between? Where did he place his energy? Where did he place his focus? Where did he place his love, his kindness, his generosity? All of a sudden now, I can't wait to wake up in the morning. Jody, I think you sell yourself a little short sometimes because you, oh, be careful.

This could be a marital dispute on air.

You are right there with the people who ask you for help. You're known as the friend who will listen, but you're going to listen. Looking for, what do we do about this? This? How do we handle this? How do we move on to that next layer of loving, that next layer of engagement?

I look back, Mike, when you're saying, you know, the dark times, I had an okay job and then I. It went bad. And I look back, it was one of the hardest times of my life. And very depressed and crying and, you know, just my whole identity wrapped up in this thing. Now, 15 years later, I'm so grateful for how bad it was because if it hadn't gotten bad enough, I'd still be at that desk. I'd still be there mostly miserable, you know what I mean? So, you know, it's not easy, it's not fun, it sucks when you're in it. But there's a reason and there's something there. And it's a great motivating factor. Being almost out of money, being in a terrible job, being in a terrible relationship, whatever you've got going on really makes you think about what is it I want out of my life? And is this, is this it? Is this what I'm really here for?

Yeah. The mistake is the decision not to take an action at that point. Like, how loud does the world need to be shaking? You saying this is not working for you?

Well, and the fallback position, from my perspective is, and we shared it about 15 minutes ago, the fallback position is get busier, work more.

Right.

Stay up later, work for the weekend, don't take the vacation, network more.

Right?

Yeah, exactly. And I come back to it and probably the hardest thing, I mean, look it, you know, as in, for me, the hardest thing for me is to sit down and be quiet. I'll never say do nothing. What I will say is do one thing. You just change the letter order of the letters. But if I can do one thing, and that one thing that I could suggest people do when they're in that dark space, it's the most paradoxical thing that you can do, is to reflect, is to pause. I call it giving yourself the gift of your own attention. And whatever it's going to take. That word momentum, I mean, that's worth a journal page. For those of you who keep journals or you have a whiteboard right there in your office, write the word momentum up there and over the next week, give yourself one liners. What does it mean to you when you have it? What does it mean to you when you've lost it? Who gives it to you? Who takes it away from you? You know, I have an activity I do. Whenever I leave an interaction with someone in my mind, I just go through, what were the pluses? What were the minuses? Where did I feel great with that person? Where did I feel negative with that person? I'm not going to unfriend them from Facebook and I'll be a little bit more careful about what I share with folks who continue to find the holes, they find the spiral, they go down that rabbit trail that I don't want to Go down.

One great way to get momentum is picking up your book. Where Jody and Jason can people get your book.

On May 2, it launches to the world, obviously in the digital realm as well as the hardback realm. But we have a bonus page, so getmomentum.com bonus. And for a limited time, we'll probably keep this up for a month or so. Folks get $360 worth of extra education by getting a copy of the book. So getmomentum.com bonus.

Fantastic. And of course, it's available on Amazon and all the different versions, Kindle and so forth. I highly suggest you get it. I haven't read it yet because as we're recording it, it's just launching today. So I'm going to be your next purchaser and pick it up today. Thanks for coming on the show.

Thank you.

Thanks, guys.

Yeah. So happy you could be here. Thanks, Chris.

As we're going through that, I'm like, I know what Chris is going to talk about. Pause your life. Pause your life. Isn't that ironic? The business you have supports momentum, you know, Pause.

It really does. And it's, it's, it's awesome. You know, it's just get. Instead of being busy, it's just breaking it down to what's important, what's meaningful. Right? That's what Jason and Jody were saying the whole time.

Pretty much, yeah. What's the big thing anyway?

We have more takeaways.

Yeah, lots of them. We'll talk about them in a second. Plus, I got a little, A little bonus for you, but I'll share at the end. First, I want to thank our corporate partners, the folks that make the show possible. Yeah, other people come, sponsors, and quite frankly, we throw that word around a lot, too. But they are our corporate partners. And what I mean by partners is that they support the show, they support the movement of profit first. Everything we're trying to do with profit first. And they've been with us, all our stalwarts, and have been with us for such a long time. So thank you to Fundera, tsheets, Fundbox, nextiva and Receipt Bank. And of all those folks, they're all amazing. Nextiva has been with us the longest. I have a regular dialogue now with Yaniv and Tomas, couple of the owners of the business. And listen, they're no small business, like 100 million or something. Now, the last time they reported, their revenues are freaking big. I was talking with Yaniv over the weekend. They said, oh, we just acquired our. Another floor in our building, which ironically is a building they own, but I don't know how you acquire. But they took in more space in their own building. Well, nextiv is a voiceover IP phone system. And I wrote about what they did in my newest book, Surge, because it's such a fascinating thing. They were able to put themselves in front of demand. Tomas, the founder Tomas Gorny, saw that the cloud was becoming popular, and he said, well, people are putting data up there, but what else can they use the cloud for? And he said, people are gonna put phones on the cloud. And he started up, along with the other major players, Vonage for your home or Ringcentral. But he decided to do it on his own. No venture capital, no backing. He decided to do it by himself. And they developed in subsequently one of the most innovative, coolest phone systems in the world. We've been using it for, I think it's eight years now. It does every function a large, traditional corporate phone system did that you used to pay hundreds of thousands for. Now you get a phone system that's literally the cost of your home phone, and you have a phone system in front of you. So check out nextiva.com, it's n e x t I v a dot com and all of our other corporate partners, check out what they have going on and thank them for sponsoring the show. And what we've also decided is while none of them give something special, we've never asked, we should actually do that. But you might as well ask when you call them, say, hey, I heard you on the Profit first podcast, I want my 10% off. And just, I don't know, I'll get you, but why not ask?

Yeah, you use the nextiva phones in your office, and everyone has their own phone. People can, you know, receive calls at home. And it's just crazy, the connectivity there.

We had, you know, two of the girls here, Jackie and Aaron, both got pregnant around the same time and are working from home now. Well, Jackie, she's back on her feet. Erin just had her baby a week ago, so she's taking time off. But Jackie's much further into raising a child now. And she's like, I'm ready to come back to work. And we said, well, why don't you just work from home? We got the next diva set up for you. And she's like, oh, that's perfect. So I can be with my children or my child. So it's powerful, man. We use it.

Is that the first profit? First baby?

The first one was Jackie. And, you know, quite frankly, she was Scheduled to be second, but she's such a competitor. She's like, squeeze this baby out early.

Need to be first.

So, Chris, what did you learn today?

I learned a lot. I took a lot of notes. In fact, I don't usually take this many notes, so I'm definitely going to have to get this book. I don't actually feel stuck in my own business right now, but I'm definitely at a crossroads and I found a lot of what they said to be very helpful. This whole idea of spending 30 minutes a day on something that's 30 or more days away is just awesome. I mean, there's nothing like getting ahead of the game, planning a little further out. I mean, just in your confidence level, you just feel so much better. You feel like, okay, I got, you know, everything's under control. You can go to sleep and sleep well. The Money Mondays, where Jody prepares a little high level report of the money for Jason because that makes him feel better. That's important. The folder full of good feedback, keeping all the accolades and atta boys that you get, putting them all in one place. So on that day when you don't feel so good, you can kind of go back there and, and say, yeah, I did rock that project. I did kill, I did land that huge client. I did an amazing job that everyone thanked me for. It's, it's really good. And of course the questions, I'm probably taking all your feedback, but all my.

Juicy ones like, damn it, can't use that one.

Damn, go ahead, I'm done then.

So I only got two left. One was I said, you know, it's, you're prioritizing the important over the urgent. And he said, well, there's a third category. It's not in my mind yet. And that is where the biggest opportunities are, right? The stuff we aren't even considering because even the important is something that we're ruminating on. He said, look beyond that. So I thought that was fascinating. The 30, 30, of course, I circled all over my paper notes here. The one thing is the question to ask, what do I want to be known for? But he added a little caveat I never heard of before. What I want to be known for as a fill in the blank. So what do I want to be known as? For as an author. What do I want to be known for as a mechanic, as a mason, or whatever you do for a living. It's interesting that now you're putting purpose within a life, endeavor within your work environment, within your business. I thought that was a Cool. Little spin.

That is really cool. I mean, it's. It just. It just helps clarify. I just thought that, you know, really, when you look at your life and you look at your situations in life, that your circumstances, you can get wrapped up in it. You can feel overwhelmed, you can feel stuck and just literally zooming out. Like, zoom out to like a thousand miles from the earth and just look at the earth and go, okay, where's my little invoicing problem now? It's tiny. It's almost nothing, but it's real and you have to take care of it. But it puts it in perspective when you zoom out and give meaning to it. And I think the biggest thing that does. It makes you feel better. It makes you feel more powerful and more coherent within yourself. More. What's the word?

Where.

No. Integral.

Clarity. Integral. Integral. Yeah. I like that.

Integrity. That's what integrity is. When you're integral, you're one. You're one thing. A hundred percent. So 100 confident. It's it. That's when you have power as a person. Right.

Yeah. As my. As we're. As you were talking, my wife just walked into the studio and she did the I'm drinking wine signal. It's 1:30 in the afternoon. Let it be known.

Yeah.

She's got back. She's part time. Yeah. And she grabbed her face. Oh, my God, what a brutal job. Dude, we gotta rock and roll.

Yes.

And here's the deal. Yo. Leave a comment on itunes, stitcher, Google Play, Better for God's sake, by the better. Tune in radio, wherever you can. Leave a comment. We are now officially looking. We are officially looking for your feedback and comments and questions, and we want to hear it.

Yeah, and give us your Twitter handle and stuff, too, or your Facebook page, because we can, you know, we can retweet and all that. And we can. We can all help each other.

So here's the. Can I give you the little bonus before we split?

Oh, I'm waiting for this.

Oh, so there's a little sneak release of Serge out. So Serge, here's what happened. The printer. There's a problem with printing, and it was not the printer's fault, by the way. It's totally my accountability, my problem. So this. The printing got delayed. It's gonna be out June 20, but as happenstance would have it, the audio release is already out. So here's the sneak peek. Go. Go to audible.com and type in surge. Scroll through all, like, the porn and like, light. Light porn kind of books that are listed there. Scroll down now Surge. It's going to quickly be the top spot, I hope, but it's already on the first page. It's like four down now, but go to surge and you can get sneak peek. Now here's a sneak peek. Most books, they only allow about five minutes. I was able to get 15 minutes. So it's a 15 minute. You got to listen to a whole chapter and really dig into it and discover the surge for yourself. That's the little surprise.

That is awesome. And it's so funny how Serge is so connected with momentum.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's the compliment. I should. I wish I knew Jody and Jason prior to this. I'm like, dudes, let's launch together, dude. Let's. Let's momentize together, dude.

You can have the Surge of sized momentum conference and both speak there.

Oh, my gosh, dude. Oh, my gosh. I think you just.

Wow, this is serious. Well, thanks, everybody. Listen again, go to itunes and stitcher and rate and review us. And again, this post. If you go to profit first podcast.com, you can leave a comment or a question on this post and call Mike funny names, do whatever you want. Mention Obi Ron, put a picture of a lightsaber, whatever. Have some fun. Profit first podcast there.

You can say that too.

Broadcast dot com. And of course, our real backers, profit.

First professionals dot com. We can say that together 100 times, dude. Listen, when your business is stuck financially, right, when your business isn't profitable, when's enough, enough? You know, statistically, five years after starting a business, half the businesses or more close the doors because they're not profitable. I'm telling you, they're the lucky ones. Because the ones who continue on survive, check by check by check by check. It's constant survival, hand to mouth living. When's enough enough? Well, if you've had enough and you want to make your business permanently profitable, go to profitfirstprofessionals.com we have accountants, bookkeepers, business experts who specialize in the profit first method. The method I developed to ensure profitability and profit is not going to be a future event anymore. It's gonna be a habit. We're gonna bake profit into your business. So go to profitfirstprofessionals.com right now. Do not delay. Click on the find button, fill out the little form there so we can match you up with the best accountant, bookkeeper, or business expert we can find. And be prepared, because starting today, you'll get massive momentum in your profitability.

That's right. And profit well, it's not something you want to brag about, but it's something you want to achieve and have in your pocket.

Yeah, brag about it, because I'm so tired of you bragging about your top line. Oh, I just made another 20,000 this month or this year or whatever. You made it, but how much did you take? I don't care how much you make. I care how much you take. Brag about your profitability. Be proud of it. And that's how you sustain your business.

So thanks again to Jason and Jody Womack and their book Get Momentum. It's out now go find it. And thanks again to Mike. Thanks to Christina, who wasn't here, and Obi Ron and the Lumberjack. We have a great crew at Profit First Professionals. Really thanks to you. You guys, you are changing the landscape of entrepreneurship, and we really appreciate it. So go to. Go to all the websites and just click on. On everything.

Everything. Just click the entire web.

We'll talk to you later.

Oh, it's this thing. Just get out of here. Just get out of here.

All right, I'm fading. Bye, everybody. See you next time.

Bye.